Glenn Guilbeau: SEC makes money, but its schedules don't make sense

LSU's Ryan Eades and the Tigers ran into a lot of rain in College Station, Texas, which led to some interesting scheduling decisions.

It was a beautiful day in College Station, Texas, on Sunday. Absolutely no rain and sunny skies with temperatures in the 80s - perfect for baseball.

LSU and Texas A&M could have played two - two nine-inning games that is. Instead, LSU and A&M did not play baseball Sunday. Each was off. Each is also done with school for the semester. Go figure.

A perfect day was spoiled because it didn't have baseball - not in College Station and not on TV or on the radio in Baton Rouge and throughout Louisiana. And the amazing thing is the Southeastern Conference rulebook went out of its way to make damn sure LSU and A&M did not play on Sunday for no reasons that make any sense.

Because of torrential rain on Thursday night in College Station, the Tigers and Aggies did not start a scheduled 8 p.m. game (for ESPNU) until 9:50 p.m. Two in-game rain delays followed, totaling 26 minutes. The game finally ended after 12:30 a.m. Friday with A&M winning 2-1.

The rain and lightning continued Friday, and the 6:30 p.m. game was stopped at 8:32 p.m. with LSU up 7-2 after six innings. Then both teams waited, and they waited until after 11 p.m. Finally, the decision was made to finish the game Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

All totaled, LSU and A&M spent more time - four hours and 36 minutes - watching the weather and waiting to play on Thursday and Friday than they did playing on Thursday and Friday, which was a total of four hours and 11 minutes. And all that, while a beautiful Sunday just stood out there waiting as wiggle room for a potential makeup game due to weather.

LSU held on for a 7-4 victory Saturday morning in the continuation of Friday night's game. Because SEC rules say that if two games - or parts of two games in this case - are played on a travel day, then the second game must be only seven innings. This makes sense on a Sunday, but not on a Saturday.

The Tigers and Aggies were tied 1-1 after the seventh inning on Saturday, though. Knowing the SEC, I'm surprised the office did not rule that game a tie. It has done similar things in the past so that visiting teams can catch a flight home. And teams have lost league titles because of this. Could you imagine SEC rules stating a football or basketball game cannot be finished because one of the teams had to catch a flight?

Extra innings were allowed, though, and LSU won 2-1 in eight innings Saturday to take the series two games to one and clinch the SEC West.

So with a gorgeous Sunday just waiting for two teams to play, LSU and A&M by SEC edict instead played until about 1 a.m. Friday, then until about 11 p.m. Friday and continued that game Saturday morning at 9:30 with another game to follow at noon? There's no cramming in baseball.

The SEC rules concerning baseball, which are available online, do not make a lot of sense. The spirit of the travel day rule is so that regular Friday-Sunday series do not somehow fall into Mondays, when the student-athletes are supposed to be in class.

But there are no classes on Sundays. And in this series, there were no classes on Monday either. If the SEC is going to let its teams schedule Thursday-Saturday series for TV and for a day off going into the SEC tournament, then it should make the most efficient use of that open Sunday if needed. It's freakin' there

One rules interpretation says the SEC does not want to give two teams the unfair competitive advantage of four days to play three games when other teams only have three days to play three games. Why not? There is no competitive disadvantage in such a scenario. Competitive disadvantages happen when all league teams do not play the same number of games. Competitive disadvantages also happen when two teams have to play until midnight on wet fields and early the next morning so as not to use four days to play three games, and other teams get to play in nice weather. The SEC allows both disadvantages to itself.

Baseball is supposed to be nine innings. Baseball is best when it's one full game per day. Baseball is supposed to be played in the afternoon or early evening ? not the witching hours with lightning in the distance after long waits.

The SEC needs to update its baseball rules from the 1970s when no one but Ron Polk and Mississippi State cared about baseball.

Change the rule now, not after someone gets struck by lightning on a wet Saturday with a dry and empty Sunday not used.

As it is now, some of the SEC's baseball rules look as ridiculous as its "bridge scheduling" in football that allowed Alabama to replace previously scheduled Georgia with weakling Missouri in the 2012 season. And in 2013, Alabama gets weaklings Kentucky and Tennessee while LSU gets powers Georgia and Florida even though the SEC owes Alabama a Georgia game. If the SEC is going to continue to schedule year to year because it can't figure out how to schedule with its new 14-member total, then it should schedule according to what teams are good, because it knows which teams are good on such short notice.

The SEC office knows how to make money. We know that. The league will make so much out of its new deal for an SEC television network, it apparently was ashamed to announce the potential financial totals of its recent deal with ESPN.

The SEC office does not know how to schedule. We know that, too. Perhaps, the same people who are handling the SEC's finances need to look at how the SEC schedules.

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Glenn Guilbeau: SEC makes money, but its schedules don't make sense

It was a beautiful day in College Station, Texas, on Sunday. Absolutely no rain and sunny skies with temperatures in the 80s ? perfect for baseball.